Thursday, 12 January 2012

'It’s been just over a week since I have posted anything on this blog. This is not by way of saying that I have been too busy to write; in fact there has been ample time. Rather it seems as though my world for the moment has become somewhat routine and I have lacked inspiration to put anything into words. In actual fact what tends to visit me during such times is a spirit of critical self questioning. This seems to constellate around the bigger questions: ‘what is it that I am doing here’ as much as it does the smaller everyday ones that face me: ‘shall I visit this person, and how will that help what Amida is doing here’. Of course both ends are connected and influenced by my thinking about what constitutes living a Buddhist life. Encountering a culture that for the large part doesn’t understand me linguistically, culturally or spiritually – by which I mean where I fit into the religious jigsaw puzzle – is a daily challenge. If I can get a handle on at least one of these three dimensions then it immediately provides the satisfaction that comes from the sense of being engaged. Yet I find that such moments are just that, fragments that nourish me for sure but not in a way that stops me from, first feeling hungry and then, sometimes empty....' ::continue reading

Sunday, 18 December 2011

I am up earlier this morning. The sounds of the household are becoming familiar to me: the scrubbing noises as floors are cleaned, the swish of the grass brush, the clank of pots and metal buckets, of water pouring and the various tones of the different voices that inhabit the place. I’ve had a somewhat restless night disturbed by mosquitos and the subsequent itching that the bites give rise to. I meet Prakash soon after I rise. He turns the water on upstairs and we make an attempt to use the toilet, to check that it is working, to discover that water is leaking from the connection between the pipe from the cistern and the toilet pan itself. There are a number of minor ‘snaggings’ as we would call them in the UK, various bits and pieces not quite right or useable yet.

By 10.00 a.m. I have been visited by Shiv lal and with the help of Prakash and his brother managed to get all of the rest of our things, including the fridge and the contents of the kitchen up into the new space. I also manage to have my first bath in the new washroom. Prakash and I then venture out for supplies, dry foods, cleaning materials and light bulbs. My intention on returning is to begin to clean the kitchen equipment and then to get this essential room operational. However I am thwarted by the fact of the water being off as the plumber attends to the various leaks in the new system. At 2.00 Shiv will pick me up to take me over to Suvidya’s house. Shiv tells me that he hasn’t visited Suvidya since the last period that Sahishnu was here. I find myself disappointed that the group doesn’t stay in contact between the times that the project is in operation. This isn’t new and also might account for Shiv’s anxious queries – a similar energy that I detected in Saraswati’s voice on the phone yesterday – about when Sahishnu will be coming. He relaxes a little when I explain that we hope she will be here in the next month.

Friday, 16 December 2011

I have slept for a long time overnight and although waking at around 5.30 a.m. roused by Prakashs’ departure for work, and from then on conscious of the noises of the house and surrounding area as things come to life, I drift in and out of sleep until around 9.30. I am plagued by a sense of guilt struggling with my need to remain hidden in the warm cocoon of my bed. Eventually I am pulled from this state by Prakashs’ brother who needs to get something from the room I am sleeping in. He offers to get tea which I accept and then the motivation to rise comes. In ten minutes I have some hot tea, a couple of oily parathas and a plate of digestive biscuits. The mix fails to revive me as one might expect and I mark how I am somewhat low in spirit today.